Primal Pursuit

I get in the car and drive.

Silence prevails for half the drive, and I spare her a brief glance. Poppy sits, chin up, staring ahead like she’s off to her own beheading. It would be funny if things weren’t so fucking serious.

“You never told me about your life growing up.”

My words make her take a sharp inhale. “Excuse me?”

“No parent or guardian abounds, Poppy.” I’m deliberately skating close to asking her for the truth, because I want to see where she goes, what she does.

“I’m twenty-two.”

“You’re young.”

“And you’re old.”

Her brattiness in this situation—her all naked under the coat—slides up in me and flips the excitement switch to on. But I keep that to myself. “What happened?”

“I didn’t like life with my aunt and uncle.”

I let her words settle in the air between us.

“No parents?”

“No.” The word’s pushed out on a hiss of violence.

“Your aunt and uncle were the wicked step relatives?”

“Why the fuck do you care, Davian?”

“I don’t.” I pause. “But considering I’ve got a fucking gun, you’re naked and handcuffed, maybe you want to humor me.”

I glance at her again, her nostrils flaring, her throat bobbing as she stares out the window.

“My uncle was handsy and my aunt let it happen,” she snaps. “That’s it.”

My fingers tighten on the wheel. There’s some of that story I’m interested in. “Explain.”

“Why do you care?”

“I said fucking humor me, Poppy.”

Again, she flinches. “He used to touch me, and my aunt knew. She’d play the Everly Brothers every time. That dream song.”

I’m going to kill them both. Hey, I’m already on a killing spree of sorts for her, so what are two more sick fucks added to the pile?

I don’t say another word. I don’t ask for more detail because I’m afraid I’ll make a U-turn on my current plans and go kill those low-life fucks first before getting more information out of her.

When we get to the club, I drag her in through the back and down to the back room.

There, I pull off her coat, unlock the cuffs, and as we look at each other, the air crackling around us, the tension and erotic needs rising like water in a cracked boat, I walk her back into the fucking wall.

“Hands above your head, Poppy.”

“Screw you.”

I lean down. “Just did. Are you mad I didn’t let you come?”

She drags in a breath then puts her hands up, and I snap manacles around one, and then the other, pulling the chains taut and wrapping them at the tension I like on the hooks. I kick her legs apart, hitting her shoes, liking the fucking dichotomy of naked with footwear, and I chain herankles.